


Shadow Familiar

by The_Exile



Category: Chrono Trigger
Genre: Cats, Family Issues, Gen, Magic, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-29 02:56:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18769783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Exile/pseuds/The_Exile
Summary: Melchior refuses to perform harsh tests on Janus to unlock his magic or let anyone experiment on his pet, a mysterious purple kitten. In exchange, Janus agrees to secretly try using some elemental magic his mother doesn't approve of.  He hopes it will be good revenge on his mother and help him protect his sister and his cat. Melchior just wants something to survive of the old ways when the new, seriously flawed system inevitably fails.





	Shadow Familiar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silveradept](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/gifts).



"What in the name of the Queen is going on here?" barked Melchior, Guru of Time.

At the cold fury in their superior's voice, both the researchers immediately backed away from the boy and the kitten. The child stopped yelling but did not move from his position, blocking the scientists' path to the terrified small cat, who hid under the chair with hackles raised and the pupils of his wide eyes dilated. He still growled his own defiance, showing the same spirit as the child who protected him. Melchior was impressed - it would take that kind of determination for small people to survive in a world that was becoming increasingly hostile to those who weren't either the most powerful or the most useful to the Queen at any particular moment. 

He was also impressed by the aura coming from them both, something that was preventing the men from coming closer. There was nothing overt - it was more like a glamour, an invisible field of protection, maybe just a feeling of dread, of the extreme wrongness of stepping any closer to the boy. It wasn't anything so simple as recognisable, categorisable magic. In fact, the boy, Janus, was worryingly lacking in magical power, a weakness that had made his father doubt his legitimacy when the man was still alive, and now led his mother to order a series of increasingly harsh trials performed on him, to the extent that the Guru was starting to have to object on ethical grounds. He doubted either of them would survive if he did that but he also didn't rate the boy's survival of the last thing Queen Zeal had suggested doing in order to boost his magical power. The last human that had been that close to Lavos, exposing them to so much of its power at once, had never recovered. Although, they had also fallen twenty feet off some loose scaffolding over the Mammon Machine, which hadn't helped. 

As for the cat... if an animal other than a Nu had the potential to cast magic, their brains certainly weren't capable of the rituals and formulae needed to direct said raw power to useful effect. They'd probably end up... oh, he didn't know... turning their fur bright purple. Or more accurately, turning all their black fur bright violet and their white fur a soft shade of lilac. 

According to Janus, he'd seen the little animal eating a pile of glowing red stuff which Melchior recognised as charged, processed dreamstone, probably fallen out of a crate heading up the industrial skyways and landed in the passenger ones, where a lost cat mistook them for food. Melchior himself didn't think a cat was stupid enough to accidentally eat something that glowed like that - it must have looked like the grassland was catching fire - but he did know that purple hair was a sign of extreme magical potential, and had to do with ancestry from a line that went back literal millions of years, to a forest tribe that had been exposed to more dreamstone than their cave-dwelling neighbours. Of course, such scientific explanations for magical aptitude were banned these days, as was anything that implied that the Enlightened, especially the Royal Dynasty, were anything less than the chosen inheritors of Lavos' blessing and the true rulers of the world. Strangely enough, the more practical side of the research, that actually led to greater advances in magical power, were not banned, but were kept top secret, explained to the populace only as new miracles of Lavos, whether or not they had anything to do with Lavos.

"Am I to believe that two of my top researchers spent all morning chasing a young boy and a kitten around?" he demanded.

"They're trying to do something to Alfador," muttered Janus, "Tell him, Melchior. Tell him that Alfador is mine, and that if my sister finds out they touched us..." 

"There'll be no need for that," he said, noting that the child chose to say 'my sister', not 'my mum'. Knowing Janus, he was probably hiding the cat from his mother as well, "Will there, Arlo, Kaiden?"

"Sir, that cat's channeling some unusual energy and I think it might be synchronising with the field the boy emits that we can't work out how to, er, I mean, that we're not allowed to fully research," Arlo stumbled over his words, groveling ever lower as he did so, "But, Sir, if we found out how to untap the energy into a useful source of magic, especially if the cat really is an, ahem, catalyst..."

"I will admit that the cat is unusual..." began Melchior.

"He's purple because he's a special, royal cat, and I think it looks handsome on him, and you're not allowed near him, ever," pronounced Janus.

"... However, you do not approach any member of the public without my permission, no matter who else allegedly granted you said permission, and we especially do not harass the Royal Family or their retinue."

"Alfador is not my retinue..." began Janus.

"He's your familiar."

"He's my best friend," corrected Alfador, "Apart from my sister. Anyway, I found him first and I rescued him and he bites everyone except me, so..."

"Nobody is going to take your cat away, Janus," promised Melchior, "A familiar is a type of animal who is bonded to a magic-user, under one of the much older systems of magic, where a connection with the wild was a lot more important. Back then, all magic was from an element or from the sun, moon or darkness. Typically, a cat was linked to the moon or the darkness."

"Are those animals purple as well?" demanded Janus. He'd sat down on the chair now. Melchior's students were suitably terrified at the man who was now just casually talking about utterly forbidden subjects to one of the Royal heirs. Alfador calmed down enough to climb onto his little boy's lap, casting contemptuous glances at the scientists and licking his paws. 

"There are no records of such. However, what records we do have might make it easier for us to understand your unusual type of magic, as well as your bond with Alfador and what we can do with it. Don't worry, these aren't the sort of tests that hurt people. I don't want us anywhere near Lavos for them - that thing seriously distorts elemental magic readings."

Janus' eyes widened. He liked the sound of these lessons - out of the way of the thing that hurt his head, and he got to keep his cat with him. 

"This doesn't sound like something Mother would agree to," he mused.

"Oh, this is illegal enough to get me imprisoned for life, but what isn't, these days?" he sighed, "To tell you the truth, there isn't much I can do except find slightly more efficient reactors for the Mammon Machine, which I swear is making my hair fall out."

"I don't mind not telling Mother, if I get something out of it," he said, "I hide lots of things from Mother. I know - you can help me keep Alfador safe. He's good at hiding but he's only small and Mother has eyes everywhere."

"Not ones that work against the fields I put up, she doesn't," he sighed, "Okay, it's a deal. I'll pretend Alfador is doing an important test for me and mustn't be touched under any circumstances - no, that he's dangerous to touch! I'll come up with a reason why you're still fine around him. But in exchange, you keep everything I'm telling you a secret, and I want you to help me understand what's happening here, okay?"

"Why's it important to you?" he asked, "Is something going to happen to me at the end of all this?"

"Only that you'll hopefully be able to develop that magic you're letting course through your system uncontrollably right now, and not let it run completely wild and end up killing someone, or maybe not show up at all and get you banished as an Earthbound One," he said, "And as my stake in this... I want some of the older versions of magic to survive, somewhere. For the time when this Lavos debacle inevitably goes catastrophically wrong. If anyone's going to get away with it, its a Royal Prince."

"I'd ask my sister but she's always having to go with Mother and do things that involve going too close to Lavos," he frowned, "And she hates it too, but she's watched more closely than me. I hate this whole thing too, and I hate Mother, and... you know what, if this is really going to ruin her new plan that she likes so much more than she likes her own kids, I'm all for it. We have a deal."

"There's one more thing, before you leave," said Melchior, "I can't guarantee I'll always be here, not any more, not when your mother's like this. So, if something happens to me, I want you to know that you can trust Gaspar and Belthazar as well. They're in the same situation as me, they're just in different places, working on different projects. I want you to go and find them if things get bad. And, Janus... be a good boy and protect your sister."

"I'm not a good boy," he said automatically, his face too serious for a child who was tickling a kitten under the chin as it happily nibbled on the ends of his unruly neck-length hair, "But I am not going to let anything happen to my sister, no matter what."


End file.
